Santa Cruz

The Heaviness of a Light Conversation (Revised)

I loved the tube. I loved the way the grimy, used smells of the bright velvet seats were covered by the chemical spray of bleach based cleaning products. I loved the perfect English accents of the automated announcers telling me each and every stop and the safety guidelines for ascending and descending the train posted above the sliding exit doors. I loved overhearing trivial phone conversations, especially the ones filled with drama or juicy bits of gossip about people I would never meet. I loved tuning out the wooshing noise of air created by the sudden movements of the train against the multi-colored tiles with my headphones.

The ins and outs of the city, at times, seemed exhausted and old, while at other times I was surprised to find something new in the ancient petrified bodies of the mummies at the British Museum that I had visited more times than I can count, or a new joy in the wetness of my inappropriate footwear when the inevitable drops of rain fell from the sky nearly every day. Borough Market was my vague destination, though my funds were running desperately low and I had no real need to purchase any more exotic foods, or unusual beverage, or bag of nuts. A day like today was different spent alone though; I had to follow my uncreative attempt at adventure, because it was all I had.

While there is thrill in the unknown, there is also thrill in the known, in the something you think you know, but which catches you off guard in a fantastic display of change. To counteract this need for chaos, I rode the tube everyday, even if I had nowhere to go, because I knew the lines, I knew the schedule, and although occasionally it was late, it always arrived, eventually. But you, who sent me on these trips, were different. You were unexpected. And everyday you made me need to go to the store, in a composed, impassive manner; I needed to shop and buy useless and kitschy things and transform them into new and meaningful objects of obsession. Recently, I had gone to Israel and on an intoxicated journey through Tel Aviv received a poster for a flea market torn from a lamp post from a sweet, blond lesbian with soft masculine features; I had taped the colorful, trivial thing to my wall, and though I have moved several times since, it still follows me around and reminds me of her. In short, attraction pushed me in too many directions, but never towards reality.

I took the St. Paul’s stop so that I could walk the half-mile extra in the chilly drizzle over the Millennium Bridge. My steps were slow and deliberate, while the steps that passed me seemed clumsy and unconscious in comparison, as if no one else cared about anything at all. As if all of their minds were simple, clean and vacantly aware, all with an unambiguous and shallow sense of themselves and their directions. The bridge expanded before me in perfect lines of white symmetry above the muted, dull grey water, and maybe my steps were not so much deliberate as heavy.

Thinking back, I suppose you, among others, picked me up when I most needed it. And I suppose that’s why it was so easy to accept it wholeheartedly and unquestionably, along with the consequences such heedlessness tended to bring. Interactions both casual and passionate were complicated by the new scenery, the new limitless density of a real city, and the indescribable feeling that my once subtle emotions were magnified beyond my control. But, like I said, there were consequences, one of them being the intense crush, and subsequent crushing, of what I thought I held dear.

At the market, the imminence of Christmas became apparent, and while I smiled at the ten piece jolly little band in holiday garb perched at the entrance, the realization that I had come alone suddenly stabbed at my vulnerability. Picturesque happiness, represented in steaming Styrofoam cups of mulled wine wrapped around the gloved hands of cheerful families, elicited unwarranted discomfort. As I wandered, disoriented, the whole, pink carcasses of pigs and the half-plucked ducks that hung against the walls of the meat stands blankly stared at me with menace.

I guess you could say I thought you were the one. Maybe not the one, but a one. One of the ones. With youth there is excitement, and with excitement there is an incredible precipitated ability to find what one is looking for, then loose it in less time than it takes to acquire it in the first place.

The nut and candy bins were usually where we stopped when we went together, but now that I stood contemplating the sweet taste of candied macadamia nuts before the colorful spectacle, I realized I had no interest in any of it. I don’t think I ever liked it to begin with. Everyone had liked the nuts too, it seemed like everybody liked the nuts, but I did not like them. The crowd bumped into me unknowingly, allowing me to momentarily join in the general sway of the momentum of the group, but I rooted my feet into the ground. I managed to leave their sight and ventured to what I really wanted, the exotic olive and smelly cheese stand.

Here, I delicately sampled the wide array of pungent olives, some darker, some lighter, some more intense and bursting with tart flavor and some more mild and tame. They were complemented with blocks of cheese attached to tiny toothpicks, and I decided that a firm, pricey Gruyere was the perfect one. Its rich flavor seeped deep into my taste buds and tickled the back of my throat, the perfect addition to the wine and cheese parties that had been frequently occurring in my flat.

Alcohol plays a central role in meetings and other varieties of rendez-vous that develop in persistently crowded social circles. The darkness of bedrooms, hallways and windowsills accompanied by the lulling factor of almost constant intoxication can lead to overly confident proclamations. This is a fact conveniently ignored by most. Was my mind more genuine? To me everyone else was empty and false, lying their way through conversations in the hopes that it would all come true in the end. And it happened over and over and over again.

My chunk of cheese and assorted olives amounted to nine pounds, about 17 dollars. As my bank account dissipated each day, I made no attempt to refill it, and somehow I was able to justify the transaction. My purse was a flowered sack, an endless pit of dark matter. The woman selling the cheese became impatient as I searched by touch through the cluttered contents and she eventually turned to another customer who persistently inquired about the various consistencies of Brie. Finally I decided to actively locate my wallet with my eyes instead of relying on the touch of my clumsy fingers, but as I gazed into the blackness using the waning light of the overcast afternoon, I still didn’t see it. I refused to believe it wasn’t there and in disarray began removing items by the handful and placing them all over the cheese display. Multiple tubes of chapstick, crumpled receipts, a mirror, an unsent postcard, my chunky, temporary phone, change and more were spread out, exposed for all to see. Embarrassed, I mumbled to the woman that I had changed my mind, scooped up the loose items and moved away from the table, into a corner and out of sight. My pulse skyrocketed, my bitter aloneness like a physical injury while I faced this highly unfavorable situation.

My flat seemed miles away, and I held no hope of finding my lost, precious item that could be anywhere by now. It could have been in the hands of a thief, miles away, or right under my nose. It was impossible to tell. Adrenaline lifted my heavy steps, and without thinking twice, I started walking back, without my underground pass, knowing that it would take more time than I could imagine. I had no desire to figure out what had happened; the patter of my numb feet disappeared over the bridge.

The Necessity of Being, More Than Having

“When I see you unexpectedly, not on my own mapped-out controlled terms, I cannot breath. I choke and want everything I have ever put into my body to be immediately expelled. Every piece of food I have ever eaten and every sip of liquid I have ever had needs to come out. Every kiss I have accepted, every touch, to go far, far away. I need to be turned inside out and shaken and slapped. I wasn’t wrong, I wasn’t mistaken.”


Each day she indulge in earthly pleasures with no thought of the afterlife; learning to delve deeper into all the subtle joys of existence and even appreciating the raw wallowing of real sorrow was a process she grasped onto and refused to let go of. Once she realized that it was all necessary, the pleasures, the pain, and that it was up to her to find them everywhere, everyday, and no one could help her or stop her, she could expect nothing else from life. Inflated and distended with feeling, she paraded around elated, judging others for their bare, minimal effort at living. She became disgusted by the jaded, impassive faces that surrounded her, both strangers and friends who exhibited this sad, closed-off American attitude. She wanted to shake these people, tell them that it was okay to try, okay to take risks, to hurt, to ball and cry and wail so hard that the neighbors could hear and become concerned and know that people are capable of treating one another that horribly. Because this was the purpose of life: to feel, whatever that feeling may be.


“This lightness, this ability to say anything and everything that may be pressured to escape the tongue, is the most beautiful thing in the world. It is the immediate gratification of softness and lightness that normally takes the effort of a lifetime to achieve, here, now. It is a new softness, the smell of straw, the innocent sounds of pleasure that escape as naturally as the sounds of wind flowing over a bottle, that give it validity. It is no more true than its opposite, however; both are filled with intensity, genuine push and pull between what fits, either melding together, or clashing with violence. Both are a part of being, now or never.”

New camera! Asahi Pentax Spotomatic

Margaret Preston-Inspiration for Tattoo?

Sized

If you could have spoken, what would you have said? The couch sticks to my skin and peels a layer off of me when I stand. The air doesn’t move out of the way when you walk around, and piles and piles of trash add up. No one ever takes it out. And sometimes there’s a hole between then and now. The holes in the ceiling let nothing in.

There’s a free and fleeting moment that’s bigger than us both. It stands not between or around but above, it’s own living, breathing reasoning.

We took a camera and with it painted our world. It took nothing, instead fed it some exterior perspective. I never figured out what the eyes that tumbled down the bumpy hill, spinning, gave to the animals that followed them around.

I’m awake in the places that one sleeps, and asleep where others are awake. Salty sweat pressed into cotton billows. There’s noises in the walls, the pushpins spear the creatures that never come out til night. It’s irregular, it’s regular, it’s a flat note that can’t get better.

Let's Get Out of this Country, Part II: Finding Abbey Road

It was starting to be that time in London when the rain literally never stops, and it is unwise for anyone to go out of doors without the proper, protective rain gear. Somehow, I survived this entire time period with no boots, no waterproof jacket, no appropriate head gear, none of this, except for an old umbrella that barely managed to open without one of its wires protruding violently close to innocent bystanders’ eyes. For four months I wore an old pair of black vans with matching holes that exposed my big toes and many other parts of my feet. For some reason I was never able to find the right replacement; nothing seemed right. Anyway, on one of these rainy, and of course chilly, afternoons, Lauren and I, finding nothing more productive to do, decided to find Abbey Road. We looked it up online and took the Tube as close to the address as possible, and then figured we could take a bus from there. I had this fishy feeling that something was going to go wrong, because we had never really been to this part of town we were going, and we weren’t even sure if what we had looked up was really THE Abbey Road, or just some other road that happened to also be called Abbey Road. But we went anyway, because Lauren was confident, and while I was not, as usual, I wanted to try to find it anyway.

We took the Tube to this stop that was kind of near this other stop where we had once gone to this football game (at this point I don’t really remember the exact names of any of these places, and you’re just going to have to take my word for it). Although it was only about three in the afternoon, I could already feel the onset of sundown, and the sky delicately changing its hue from a light grey to a darker, more sinister cement-grey. With maps and umbrellas in hand we began the trek, never finding a bus that would take us in the right direction. After what seemed like miles, perhaps two, we began poking our heads in the little businesses that were interspersed between the gentrified, picturesque houses, asking, without much hope, “where we might find Abbey Road, you know, like The Beatles?” Most of these bakery and French launderette owners did not offer us answers in a language we could really understand, and after many of these encounters, one was finally able to assure us that we were walking in the right direction. Literally three hours had passed since we had left our flat, but we continued on, determined to have that picture, the proof that we had been there.

Finally we were on Abbey Road. But where was the cross walk? It turned out that finding the road was not the end of our journey, but just another beginning. The rain soaked up my poor little exposed toes, and although we tried not to admit it aloud, we were both soaked, freezing, and loosing hope. Each time we came to a cross walk one of us would proudly declare that we had found it, that it “totally looks like the picture” only to discover that no, that they all looked the same, that we had no way of knowing. Then, eventually, when nighttime officially fell, it became obvious that we had found it. There was the recording studio, and the graffiti, and love notes to John and Paul and the other guys, all in front of a street where cars whizzed past, not giving a second thought. After several embarrassing tries, we finally got the pictures, after nearly being run over. They are taken at night, of us alone, because there was no one standing around willing to take a picture of both of us together. We got it, but after all that work, the picture kind of makes me wonder why we cared so much. The whole thing was a pretty nerdy endeavor, but then again, most things Lauren and I did were lame, in a really good way.

Let's Get Out of this Country, Part I

{The meager beginnings of an attempt to chronicle my experiences before they are lost in the recesses of my memory forever}

Because it was on the way back from Barcelona, and because we all wanted to go there, I mean, you kind of had to go there, we decided to go to Paris. I had been there before, a few years ago, with my family, but this time, for many circumstantial reasons, was very different. That time the entire traveling experience had been a chore, and horribly boring at times. Well, traveling is always a chore, partly, but that time it really did seem like I was tired all the time, of my family, of museums, of sightseeing. It all just blended together into a long, tired homesickness. One brighter memory I do have is the Panini’s, though. My parents were running low on their Europe budget by the time we got to Paris, so everyday, for the entire week we were there, we had to split between the five of us two Panini’s that cost about three Francs each. Though the portions seemed far too small after we had carried them up to our little hotel room and divided them up equally, they always seemed to fill me up, and more importantly, warm me up. My two brothers always fought over who got the portion that appeared to be two millimeters bigger than the others, then gobbled them up before I had managed to put a dent in mine. The melted cheese and delicately sliced meat seemed to make my stomach bulge until well into the next day. The man who sold it to us was the best part about it though; he must have been making sandwiches day and night for, like, his entire life, and he loved it. Every evening we made our journey back to our hotel from a rigorous day of doing touristy things, our feet aching and our steps heavy, but when we began to pick up the savory smells of those Panini’s, our pace would quicken and our growling, empty stomachs would lead us to the grimy street corner. There was always a crowd positioned close and personal around the guy flipping and grilling, locals and tourists alike, but by about the fifth day we had gone to him, he would smile at us, call us his “friends” and get started on our usual order right away. So happy, so content, just like that.

So, like I said, this time was different. More drinking, more not-by-the-book exploration, more random meetings with interesting people. When you’re with your family consisting of a middle aged couple and three small children you tend to stick together, because there’s no need for anybody else really. This time though, I was still looking for the magic that I had experienced during my first trip, and I didn’t care how stupid that sounded when I thought about it. Hopefully it would be even more memorable this time, and more meaningful. I fervently looked for meaning everywhere, from the writing on bathroom walls to the epic view from the Sacre Ceour. Our first night in the city, my three fellow travelers and myself tried, unsuccessfully, to sneak four people into a room reserved for three. We spent two hours at an Italian restaurant around the corner, in the middle of the night, scheming a plan drawn out on a paper napkin that would allow our fourth member to enter unnoticed. This problem occurred because before, when we had made the reservation online, in the safety of our London flat, we thought it would be no trouble at 2 am to waltz right in with an extra personne; no big deal, everybody did it. Not at this joint, no no…non. This vaguely middle eastern man and his minions had us pined from the start as scammers..we were nailed, identified and humiliated on the spot. But, it all worked out, because our fourth, “illegal” confidante was escorted to a more expensive single room, the “Harry Potter Closet” that, for its modest size and old, grimy furniture, offered us one feature that silenced our momentary fit of panic. In the center of the slanted west facing wall was a window with no shades, and placed perfectly in the middle of this window showed us a clear and vivid view of the Eiffel Tower, blinking with luminescence of a million bulbs. The minute we had walked into our expensive second room happened to be the minute of the new hour, in the middle of the night, and we caught the light show during our first, jet lagged night in Paris. And we shrieked and laughed and took pictures and it was full of magic.

To Whom it May Concern

{An experiment in Flash Fiction}

That morning I sat inside looking out the window. The view drew me outside and I lay on the crisp, chemically enhanced grass, my bare legs itching from the exposure. I licked my lips, my forehead started to sweat, and the evaporation of these liquids tickled as they left my skin. It almost burned. It was still early, and one by one my neighbors drove away to work. The cat had not even woken yet. The little sun that made its way to the ground was warm though, warm enough to dry out my skin. The beads of moisture that formed at the edges of my eyes also drifted away, and I was glad to see them go.

Desiree is my roommate. Or was, I suppose. That morning I went in to the bathroom to feed the cat, like I usually do. I guessed that Desiree had gone to work, because although her hours were never the same every day, not being up and making breakfast meant only one thing, that she had gone to work. But I had not heard her usual overwrought leaving routine, which involved a crescendo of sound, dropping and picking up of keys, whistling of the tea kettle. I had slept undisturbed, at least not by the noises of others.

Specks of cat litter stuck to my bare feet and followed me around the house; the old wooden panels creaked and moaned under my weight. I think I must have spent some time circling through the kitchen and living room and the twists and turns of the hallway doors, not doing anything really. I made coffee and burned my hand on the glass container, so I wrapped a piece of cold towel around the area and continued walking. Desiree’s door stood wide open; a streak of sunlight created a crisp panel of glow on the ground. I stood in the glow. Then I peered inside.

That’s when I found the box full of letters.

They have asked me the time frame of these events, but, see, I’m not so sure. I don’t usually keep track of the time. I couldn’t even remember what time I woke up.

I didn’t realize what they were at first. They were scattered all over the bed, some had fallen on to the floor, some unfolded and laying wide open, some closed and still tucked within their envelopes. Most of them looked like at one point they had been white, but were now faded to a sickly, burnt yellow color.

Although they were open, left as if disregarded, I felt guilty running my eyes over the careful, delicate cursive. I ran my fingers over the pattern on the ornate wooden box that had contained them, which sat wide open and empty, its insides lined with mossy green felt. They did not seem yellow with time, but with wear, as if by reading them over and over, they had been used up and had grown old. In a way, they were beautiful; I wish I could see them again, but I suppose they’re gone now. Someone must have taken them away.

I sat on the bed to examine them more closely, picking up several before I settled on one. The lines ran together in the most seamless manner, as if they had been meticulously edited during the course of a lifetime. I soon realized that they were all the same, or at least, variations on the same theme, contorted in subtle ways to fit the certain moods of the writer. Some expressed the thoughts optimistically, with fervor and hope. Other letters told the same story but with anger and bitter irony. Still others were so empty, abysmal, holding no hope of recovery or an answer. These were the hardest to read. The sun rose as I poured over the letters, up high over the house and then back down the other side.

And when she didn’t come home that night, I undoubtedly knew it had something to do with the box full of unsent letters. The last letter was dated on the day before she disappeared, but it looks old too. I don’t understand; it is unclear whether she has disappeared or been taken away. The intended reader is also nowhere to be found. I now live alone in the house, and to everyone’s surprise, I remain a suspect.

Half-Life

There's a half eaten sandwich lying on the ground
There's half a man walking towards it and picking it up

The length of my street is halfway to another continent
The amount of work to be done is half as much as next year's, and the next

I only listen to half the songs I hear
I only say half the words I think

The great man has given half his speech
I only have half the day to figure it all out

The books on my shelf are all half-read
Everyone I know, I only half-know

September 2008

The Whekau

Somehow, Emily knew that the Whekau in the woods was a Laughing Owl. She had learned that in school. But that was all she remembered, and she didn’t think her parents had heard of the creature and could give her any more information. But in order to calm herself, she had to be reassured that the devilish squeals in the dead of night when nothing else stirred came from something real, and not from the depths of her imagination. For the past two weeks her parents had not seemed bothered by the noise, but at the timeshare cabin they were never bothered by anything that did not revolve around fiddling with the bunny ears to find reception for the television, or the height of the invisible line on the vodka bottle, or the weather, because if it was raining they could not go into town to play tennis.

On one particularly dull and windy night she crept downstairs silently to fetch the unabridged dictionary from the dusty shelf behind where her father monotonously snored in the lived-in green recliner. His chest heaved steadily, although the wind rattled the many glass panels held together by wooden beams in the compact living room. Struggling under its weight, Emily brought it to the kitchen table and flipped the fragile pages open towards the end.

Whekau: An endemic owl found in New Zealand, but is now extinct. It was plentiful when European settlers arrived in New Zealand in 1840. Specimens were sent to the British Museum, where a scientific description was published in 1845. The species belongs to the monotypic genus Sceloglaux (“scoundrel owl”, probably because of the mischievous-sounding call).

There was a small outline of the bird, if that’s what it really was, next to the description; it was not too much different from any other owl she had seen before. But, she realized she was not in the native place of the bird and that the bird was also extinct at this point in time. These facts did not pacify her. Its name was one of those words that was constantly floating around in her mind, but was never really available to use in common conversation. Occasionally she had tried to bring it up at the dinner table during family gatherings, saying something like, “Oh yes, Aunt Rosemarie’s parrot sure does have quite the talking voice, but have you ever heard the vicious laugh of the Whekau?” This kind of comment would elicit blank stares or confused “no’s.” But she hoped one day someone would say that yes, he had heard the laugh, and it had rattled him to his core. In fact, ever since the night he heard the owl, he had never been the same again.

Her father’s deep sleep and her mother’s alcohol induced and apathetic state (conditions typical of her parents during their yearly vacation to the cabin) was too conducive to getting into mischief to pass up. She packed her backpack with a flashlight, a bottle of electric blue Gatorade, her digital camera, an extra sweatshirt, and a box of crackers. Then she ripped out the page in the unabridged dictionary that contained the word “Whekau”, folded it as many times as she could (the tissue thin paper allowed about fourteen folds) and slide it into her back pocket carefully.

The front yard turned into wilderness quickly, but she gulped down her fear like a bad milkshake and shown her light into the trees and emptiness and walked steadily forward. Periodically she propped the Whekau's picture in front of her nose so that she could be reminded of what she was looking for. The crackers played a duel roll; as she walked she left a steady trail of crumbs behind her, and when the creature made its appearance known to her, as she was sure if would, the crackers would lure him down to the ground.

It seemed as though she had been walking for hours, but her calculator watch indicated it had only been forty-five minutes since she had started her search. To her surprise, while the shrill laugh of the creature had been strong and clear from inside the cabin, somehow it seemed to be growing fainter the further into the woods she walked, until the cacophony turned into the weak squeak of a mouse. Unmotivated by the now dull calling and unsure of where it originated, Emily found herself running into trails of crumbs, presumably her own, and growing increasingly tired and cold. The flashlight no longer consoled her and the more turned around she became the more convoluted her head became. At this point she was not sure what would be more difficult to find, the Whekau or the cabin. So she sat and sipped her Gatorade, shivering, and recorded a video of her last moments on her camera.

“Dear Mom and Dad. By now, you must have called the police, who are probably too far away from this wilderness to get here in time to rescue me from…whatever’s out here. One day I went three days without eating, so I’m sure I can last longer than that with the rest of these crackers. Maybe if I never find a way out, at least I might find the Whekau, and maybe he can help me. Don’t worry.” She thought about saying “I love you” or “Goodbye, I’ll miss you,” but she had always felt uncomfortable saying things like that so she didn’t. Instead, she awkwardly waved and tried to smile, but the image of her face illuminated from beneath by the flashlight must have been hideously frightening, she was sure.

Dew dripping onto her exposed face from the branches above awakened Emily at 5:37 am and the bright rays of the sun shook her to full consciousness soon after. The chill of dawn was unbearable, and although she knew she was lost, she followed the trail of the first line of crumbs she came across and walked so fast she practically jogged, bouncing up and down with her light backpack loose on her shoulders. The mystery and intrigue of the woods did not seem as interesting to her in the morning light, although it was certainly a lovely sight. She had almost forgiven herself completely for not finding her creature, and only wanted to find the cabin and her parents.

It took less time to find her way back than it had to become completely lost the night before. Emily was exhausted and relieved beyond any sense of relief she had ever felt when she began to make out the outline of the simple wooden structure of her parent’s cabin, the new light of the day reflecting off the window panels. Bursting through the door, she ran to her father, panting, and fell into his lap. She didn’t even notice that he was in the same chair she had left him in last night, the same position in fact. Her mother was in the kitchen, sipping coffee and absently staring at a newspaper.

“What are you doing?” He was obviously startled, more angry than concerned.

“I’m back, I found my way back.” She breathed heavily, excitedly.

“Oh. What are you talking about.” It was more of a statement than a question, and he motioned for her to get off of his knee.

“But I didn’t find it,” Emily said, realizing that her mission had failed.

But neither of her parents asked what she had not found.

August 2008

The Heaviness of a Light Conversation

{Note: This came out a lot more depressing than I originally intended it to be...oh well!}

I loved the tube. I loved the way its grimy, used smell was covered up by the chemical spray of bleach based cleaning products. I loved the perfect English accents of the automated announcers telling me each and every stop and the safety guidelines of ascending and descending the train. I loved overhearing trivial phone conversations, especially the ones filled with drama or juicy bits of gossip. I loved tuning out the wooshing noise of air created by the sudden movement of the train against the multi-colored tiles with my headphones.

I had a vague destination in mind but tried not to think about it as an end. The ins and outs of the city seemed to be exhausted at times while at other times I was surprised to find something new in the ancient petrified bodies of the mummies at the British Museum that I had visited more times than I can count, or a new joy in the wetness of my inappropriate footwear when the inevitable drops of rain fell from the sky expectedly nearly every day. Borough Market seemed to be calling to me even though my funds were running desperately low and I had no real need to purchase any more food, or unusual beverage, or bag of nuts. It was different alone though, and whatever reason compelled me there was worthwhile, no matter how useless the repetitive trip seemed to be.

While there is thrill in the unknown, there is also thrill in the known, in the something you think you know, but which catches you off guard in a fantastic display of change. I needed to ride the tube everyday, even if I had no where to go, because I knew the lines, I knew the schedule, and although sometimes it was late, it always came. But you were different, malleable, unexpected. And everyday I needed to go to the store, in a composed, impassive manner; I needed to shop and buy useless and kitschy things.

I took the St. Paul’s stop so that I could walk the half-mile extra in the chilling drizzle over the Millennium Bridge. My steps were slow and deliberate and all of the steps that passed me seemed clumsy and unconscious in comparison, as if no one else cared about anything at all. As if all of their minds were simply blank and clear, all with an unambiguous sense of themselves and their direction. The bridge expanded before me in perfect lines of white symmetry above the ugly grey water, and maybe my steps were not so much deliberate as heavy.

I suppose you, among others, picked me up when I most needed it. And I suppose that’s why it was so easy to accept it and the consequences it inevitably brought. Things were complicated by the new scenery, the new sense of independence in a city without limits and an indescribable feeling that my once subtle emotions were magnified beyond my control. But, like I said, there were consequences, one of them being the magnified crush and crushing of what I thought you held dear.

I thought today might be my last trip to Borough so I took it in as much as I could: the sights, the smells! Signs of the imminence of Christmas surrounded me, and while I smiled at the ten-plus piece jolly little band in holiday garb perched at the entrance, the realization that I had come alone suddenly struck me as odd. There was no reason for it, really. The vulnerability I felt even when surrounded by picturesque happiness, represented in steaming Styrofoam cups of mulled wine wrapped around the gloved hangs of cheerful middle class families, was unwarranted. I felt at any moment I would become lost in the twists and turns of the marketplace though I knew them well. The whole, pink carcasses of pigs and the half-plucked ducks that hung against the walls of the meat stands seemed menacing, and everything I knew seemed like one big question.

I guess you could say I thought you were the one. Maybe not the one but a one. One of the ones. With youth there is excitement, and with excitement there is an invincible power to find what one is looking for, then loose it quicker than in the blink of an eye, in less time than it takes to acquire it in the first place.

The nut and candy bins were usually where we stopped when we went together, but now that I stood contemplating the sweet taste of candied macadamia nuts before the colorful spectacle, I realized I had no interest in any of it. I don’t think I ever liked it to begin with. Unaware members of the crowd bumped into me without a second thought but my feet stayed glued to the ground. Sometimes others I went with liked the nuts too, it seemed like everybody liked the nuts, but I did not like the nuts. With some effort I managed to leave their sight and ventured to what I thought I really wanted, the exotic olive and smelly cheese stand.

Here I delicately sampled the wide array of pungent olives, some darker, some lighter, some more intense and bursting with tart flavor and some more mild and tame. I washed them down with blocks of cheese attached to tiny toothpicks, deciding that a firm Gruyere that was a bit pricy was the perfect one. Its flavor brought sparks to my tongue and tickled the back of my throat and would be the perfect complement to the wine and cheese parties that had been frequently occurring in my flat. I really just wanted it all for myself, but decided it would be best to offer it to others. Besides, wine was usually the feature of the event anyway and the cheese might go unnoticed.

Alcohol plays a central role in meeting and subsequent…meetings. The darkness of bedrooms and hallways and windowsills accompanied by the lulling factor of almost constant intoxication can lead to overly confident proclamations. Everyone in the world seems to know this, yet conveniently ignore it. Was my mind more genuine? To me everyone else was empty and false, lying their way through conversations in the hopes that it would all come true in the end. And it happened over and over again, sometimes working itself out in a tolerable ending, sometimes crashing and burning.

My chunk of cheese amounted to nine pounds, about 17 dollars. Somehow I was able to justify such a ridiculous purchase as I reached for my wallet that held the thick pound notes whose origin, I chose to ignore, came from my mother. My bag was a flowered sack, an endless pit of dark matter that held many objects that always strangely seemed to feel very similar. The woman selling the cheese became impatient as I searched with my hand through the contents of my life and eventually turned to another customer who kept inquiring about the various consistencies of Brie. Finally I decided to actively find my wallet with my eyes instead of relying on the touch of my fingers, but as I gazed into the hole using the waning light of the overcast afternoon, I still didn’t see it. I refused to believe it wasn’t there and in disarray began removing items by the handful and placing them all over the cheese display. Multiple tubes of chapstick, crumpled receipts, a mirror, an unsent postcard, my phone, change and more were spread out, exposed for all to see. Embarrassed, I mumbled to the woman that I had changed my mind, scooped up the loose items and moved away from the table, into a corner out of sight. My pulse skyrocketed, my bitter aloneness like a physical injury while I faced this highly unfavorable situation.

My flat seemed miles away, and I held no hope of finding my lost, precious item that was probably miles away by now. Adrenaline lifted my heavy steps though, and without thinking twice, I started walking back, knowing that it would take more time than I could imagine. I had no desire to figure out what happened; the patter of my numb feet disappeared over the bridge.

August 2008

It's All Been Done

He could smell the mustiness flowing out of the ancient building from a block away in the breezy, morning heat, and as he crossed through its heavy, carved, paint chipped doors the feeling of old overpowered him as though he had stepped into a time warp. Suddenly the sound emanating from his tiny headphones (a very appropriate classical, and mysterious, Indian track) seemed to overpower the eerily grand and cold silence of the never-ending hallway entrance to London’s oldest library, flooding every crevasse and corner with its melodious wailing and jingling. Unlike the promise this place held, all of his usual study spots had become old and tiring, uninspiring and dead. But this old library somehow seemed new to him, full of untapped reserves of books, stories untold, and dust to be uncovered. Dr. Donough had sent him there after deeming the progress of his thesis “unsatisfactory;” really, it was less than that, for the words were there, but there was nothing behind the words. While a draft is allowed to be a draft, his piece was nothing more than several beginnings, a few middles and no endings. Trials and experiments with no “direction,” that screamed for some sort of organization and substance. He could already feel the gross ignominy that would come with an incomplete PhD, the explanation he would have to give to his great aunt, the funder of his daunting and noble pursuits. The summer that was supposed to have brought success and praise had turned into a spiraling decay of run on sentences and incomplete paragraphs, his plans gone awry and stale.
He stepped into the foyer of the Great Hall, which broke off onto two sides and continued several hundred feet forward; he presumed it used to be some sort of church as this central area resembled the recognizable shape of a crucifix. Taking the left turn, he wandered through the rows of huge mahogany desks equipped with yellowish lamps, some glowing and occupied with people whose heads cowered over thick volumes. Every so often he sneezed loudly from the dust, disturbing the fixated studiers and surprising himself each time. He wondered what they were all doing on this bright, hot Saturday in this gloomy darkness overtaken by unbroken concentration; but in reality he too wished to be hypnotized, locked in and undistracted. The right location for his work would come to him soon enough, and as he continued to wander, he discovered that there were more turns and hallways than he ever expected. At the first opportunity he took another right turn, then a left, then another right, and the further inward he journeyed, the less frequently he saw these monotonous, faceless patrons of the library. His sneezing increased, and beneath his thick-framed glasses, his eyes began to burn, itchy and watery, but he continued on, ignoring his typical inhibitions. Soon he came to a narrow set of spiraling stairs, a hidden entrance to the second floor, and began the rigorous climb, his out of shape calves and hamstrings cramping under the pressure. Deeming this area deserted enough to feel comfortable blasting his headphones, he turned them back on shuffle, enjoying the surprise of each random song. Each song meant something, not quite a sign, but more like an appropriate filter in which to view each of his situations; normally he was not a superstitious person in any way, scoffing at astrology, religion, anything of the sort, but music was different. Music actually meant something, it could be changed and interpreted and created and destroyed in any way any person or machine could think of; it was loud, quiet, slow, fast, heavy, soft, happy, sad, harsh, sympathetic…it could do things to people, and people could do things to it, but it never told anyone what to do. It did not predict the future, or tell its listener what to believe in, it simply asked, and that is what set it apart; it demanded nothing of him, a comforting partner to hold his hand amidst modernity.
As he marched upward to the irregularity of Explosions in the Sky, the walls took on different shapes, influenced by the new, reflective thoughts the music produced in his little head. The sight at the top of the stairs overwhelmed him, the ceiling reaching higher than the ceiling on the first floor, and he wondered what kind of church has such a monstrous second floor, determining that it must have been originally built as a library, or at least something other than a religious institution. Here he could tell the silence was even greater, as the sound in his ears was crisper and louder than he had felt before. The great red desks in this area were virtually deserted, except for in the far corner, where if he squinted, he could make out an old man hunched over several books, flipping the fragile pages quite frequently and violently. He chose to avoid walking near the only visible person and instead began scanning the titles in the oversized, parallel bookcases that seemed to go on for miles. Weaving in and around the shelves, letting his eyes freely move as high up as the wished or low to the ground at the very similar looking spins of the books. Most were a dull greenish, grey or red, and almost all seemed to be covered in a thick layer of dust as if they had not been touched for years. He had no idea what he was looking for, and since the library lacked a computer catalog and he could not be bothered to figure out the paper catalogue (he had not used one in years), he simply walked and walked, hoping something would catch his eye, but for some reason the further he walked the sleepier he felt, and the heavier his itchy eyes became. Eventually he made it to the end of the room and was faced with a dull red door with a beautifully intricate handle; his unusual wanton sense of adventure convinced him to open the door, and as an epic Radiohead song complete with overpowering strings played, he stepped into the nearly empty room. Like the other rooms, the ceiling, though not as high, was decorated with Grecian palm leaves and chain links, and four columns sat neatly against the four corners. The room was much smaller than whence he had came, holding only a few desks in the center and no portable shelves, just rows and rows of shelves built into the walls, with one of those old fashioned ladders leaning against each side. Immediately he climbed up one, covering his hands in grey dust, almost smiling to himself in a childish episode of mirth, and began rolling back and forth against the right wall. He had always wanted to do that. In this room the books seemed even older, as if picking one up would cause it to quickly disintegrate in his hands, but he decided to take his chances of damaging one of the library’s precious volumes and pick up the oldest book he could find. One book, a crème colored hardback, stood out with its luminescent brightness and overlapping proximity to the edge of the shelf. Grabbing it, he jumped from seven rungs up the ladder to the floor, landing with a thick thud on the parquetry floor. It seemed as if a tiny earthquake had just occurred and he half-expected a library official to burst in to reprimand him for disturbing the perfect stillness they had so specifically created.
But the stillness and silence were actually loud to him, unlike the bustling cafes and bookstores that had ironically become hollow, shallow dead-ends; in these places he was merely another face trying to find that one thought no one had ever thought before, discover that secret, or secret of another secret, that would cause everything to make sense. Here he was digging deep, alone, and uninfluenced by the Babel of his peers; the book he held was perhaps overlooked in the past, and held within it a secret that could emerge as a newborn part of his world, an experience in pedagogy unlike his previous years of study. Carefully placing the book on one of the desks, he expected cogitation and musings in epic proportions to explode from him, but instead found himself blinking uncontrollably and his sight becoming inhibited by the salty tears forming at the corners of his eyes. He opened the book at some arbitrary place in the middle and began perusing the lines, but in order to freshen his mind and give his eyes a rest, he decided to lower his head on the open pages for a few minutes so as to more easily grasp the messages that were soon to be sent to him, to be interpreted and become the spring-board for his next great writing endeavor. He quietly turned on the nonsense of Blonde Redhead and let his mind drift off into a light sleep, expecting to be roused by some harsh vocals in a matter of minutes.
Not to his surprise, he woke up to discover that the music was no longer playing, the two albums having long ago played through. But it was not the sudden silence that had woken him, but a creaking of the door upon which he had entered the empty room. Inside the frame stood, still hunched over, the old man who had previously been the only occupant of the larger room outside the younger man’s layaway. His thick white hair contrasted starkly with his bright red nose, and his glasses, similar to the young man’s thick black frames, rested well below his line of sight. The young man, roused so suddenly, stared with confusion at the intruder, who stared back at him with equal confusion and then mechanically flashed his gaze around the room furiously. The young man pulled his headphones out of his ears and thought about gathering his things and sneaking past the old man, but couldn’t manage to wake up his tingling limbs quick enough to make an unnoticed escape. He knew his sleep had been long and deep because the subtle flashbacks of his dreams suddenly came streaming through his disoriented head like a movie montage, complete with background music, highly pixilated color and dancing elephants. In fact, this old man could have very well been a figure from his dreams, an unconscious figment of his imagination.
The old man simply stormed in after searching the room and leaned over with his forearms on the table, bringing his red nose closer than was comfortable to the young man’s face and breathing out a rancid stench.

That book there…the old man whispered astringently, looking straight into his eyes, and not glancing at the book to which he referred.
Yes? What about it? The young man’s voice quavered slightly, but he tried to mask his fear of this impassive face in front of him.
It’s not meant for you. Give it here, he demanded, flipping over the front jacket and slamming it shut, causing dust to escape and dance around their hands.

The young man tried to keep his hands gripped on the book, but before he knew what was happening the old man had it clutched between his fingers and was turning to go. He hobbled quickly out, not as if he were running away, but as if he truly believed the book belonged to him and that no one in his right mind would even attempt to retrieve it or take it back out of observance of the law.
As soon as the young man came to his senses he walked out the dull red door into the larger room where he saw the old man in the same spot he had been before, his tattered clothing that looked like it had once been new and expensive, in another life perhaps, blending into the neutral colors of the stakes of books surrounding him. There were five stacks total and several other books lying open around him, and on the highest stack sat his crème book, looking very unstable. For a few moments the young man could not manage to approach the desk, and was not sure if it was worth it; had he taken it away because he knew it possessed what the young man had hoped? He would like to believe that it was in fact worth something, a precious item holding information beyond anything he had ever known, but now, after he had woken, it did not seem so. He could not stand to watch the old man turn pages and pages of several different books at once any longer, occasionally scribbling with a stiff fist in a notebook, and at once had the urge to leave. Gathering his belongings, and once again sticking his headphones in his ears, he began the long journey back to the entrance, the gangway to the wealth of knowledge in which he was supposedly surrounded by. It took several minutes to locate the correct turns out of the library, so dark and stale it seemed now to be an underground cave, and when he walked out to the fresh, cool air he was surprised to find that the powerful summer sun was quickly descending and the polluted air had created a lovely, yet not picture-perfect, scene against the western sky which the library faced. Feeling more awake, he breathed deeper the scent of the city, in all its smoggy mess mixed with cigarette smoke, and women’s perfumes, and the occasional patch of flowers, and the homeless man crouched in a stoop. He took it all in, even took his headphones out, and looked forward to the lazy, predictable route home.

July 2008

A Clean Slate

A most unusual sensation, a surprise neither pleasant nor unpleasant, but invoking an unparalleled curiosity. Finding this layer of the onion, your soul with in you, not lying beside you, clutching to stay with you while you sleep. You and are I are tainted by muddy surroundings, choking on incense and stubbing our toes when we grow. This capturing act, solidified in glorious technology, I will not blame it on narcissism, not like staring at a mirror, a reverse of you, you as you want to capture you. I see with infant eyes, what not one in the entire universe could ever find, the ability to exit the body, but not transcend, not learn anything. I remember how the mirror is stagnant, flat and cold, abruptly placing mirror girl in an equally distanced, expected reflection, blocked by frozen eyes unable to catch a real glance, an unknown version of the embryo. Her eyes are those of a stranger, this person too close to be unfamiliar. It never got old, this educating video, her outline cut and pasted into a background normally ignored by the naked eye. Watching it was like standing in a room surrounded by hundreds of jagged mirrors, revealing strands of DNA and their progression to adulthood.

The anxiety that normally creeps behind the eyes in moments of pressure, the self conscious actions of the leader, all abated and fallen away when the subject is unaware of his subjection. Captured this way she was free to be a stranger, it made the viewer gasp; seeing her movements so different than how they feel to perform. One’s voice is normally heard from under rocks, or underwater, distorted by brain juice, other worldly reverberations. But today I hear with clearer sense, through the airwaves, but still do not get to the bottom of the secret. It is merely an opening up of the onion, a rare glance at reality, unfiltered by new and shining electrical eyes. To see for a moment with the eyes of god, each and every one of you, I am the result of factor after factor, a meatball with my foreign mannerisms.

May 2008